@roccotacodad54 wrote:
Actually the only thing that I truly admire on todays cars & trucks is the cooling systems. They (at least ours) never overheat.
I don't remember how many miles were on my old '68 ford 3/4 ton Custom Cab but my linkage to the throttle broke once and I fixed it by running a piece of clothesline through the firewall up to the carbuerator. Got me home. Another time a piece of something flew up in traffic and cut my right front brake line. I pulled off the road, found a wood screw, cut the line and plugged it with the screw. Again, got me home.
Flattened all four tires and broke the steering gear at night in the desert by turning left instead of right on a road I thought I knew. Got me home again. Barely but got me there.
I set the timing by ear and used a matchbook cover to set the gap for the points.
I only sold it because it never had seatbelts and people kept rear ending me (3 times at stop lights).
My new truck had a problem with the fuel pump controller?...tow truck time. Warranty work.
I like the new but also miss the old.............
What I like about newer cars is that my Jeep told me specifically that the problem was a cylinder 5 misfire. Had it been my 1986 truck with the carb and no real computer then it could have taken me quite a while to narrow that down. Same thing, my toyota van told me it had a bad sensor, and exactly which one it was, and even with one leg I was able to crawl under there and replace it myself. And modern vehicles with fuel injection and electronic ignition tend to basically stay in tune and have way less of the classic "won't start" problems. What I hate about newer cars is that everything is near impossible to reach, there are mystery wires and vacuum hoses everywhere under the hood and they invariably have a half dozen different electronic black boxes that can go bad.
On old cars, I can get a tool on everything with relative ease.
Even my 1984 Mercedes with its mechanical fuel injection and several black boxes is actually pretty easy to work on even though most mechanics won't touch them. I think the fact that I have to look up how to do everything anyway sort of negates the trouble normal mechanics have about everything on them being different than other cars. And it always seemed like every bolt that seemed impossible to touch, deep in the engine compartment actually had a totally straight shot to it as long as you put a long enough extension on the socket.
What I also like about older cars is that if you are driving some hoopty nearing the end of its service life that it won't be continually flashing you with warnings and engine codes. Instead you can just drive the thing until it dies a gentle death. One of my old 80s car (the Mercedes I think), had a check engine light that actually told the truth, as it was labeled O2 sensor instead of check engine, which I think was the only thing that could trigger that light on a lot of old cars.
Oh, and speaking of coolant, my 1984 Mercedes has had the same coolant in it for at least 20 years, because I know I never replaced the coolant in the sealed radiator system, for all I know the coolant is 41 years old. Still runs the right temperature all the time.
